Always on the move - 44 years of the Opel Kadett C 1200
10/17/2018
The report on the Opel Kadett C Coupé with a 1.2-liter engine and 60 hp motivated me to contribute my own Opel story.
I've always been an Opel fan; my very first car was an Opel Rekord P2 with a 1.7-liter engine. This was followed by an Opel Kadett B with 1000 cc. The next time I bought a new car, I was faced with the choice of getting either a Ford Escort 1300 or an Opel Kadett C with a 60 hp engine. The choice fell, it will come as no surprise to anyone, on the Kadett, naturally with SR equipment, which had just been released. The sedan was registered for road use on March 28, 1974.
At the time, I was a member of the Sieglar racing club, which also organized a slalom. Naturally, I entered the Kadett and drove straight to 3rd place. I had tasted blood and was infected with the motorsport virus. I drove in slalom events for the first few years. The first thing I had done to the car was to fit yellow cones and a roll bar. When I compared my times with the competition, I noticed that I was usually better in the "improved" rankings. So, little by little, further optimizations were added: Solex 40 DDH twin carburettor, sharper camshaft, optimized cylinder head, rear axle lock. In the end, my good Kadett produced 87 hp on the roller. (Over the years, a strut brace, oil cooler, bucket seats, harness and much more were added)
However, the 1150 to 1300cc class was heavily populated. I had to deal with the Fiesta 1300, the NSU TT and the Simca Rallye 2, which already had 82 hp and rear-wheel drive as standard. In addition, my Kadett had to serve as family transportation during the week. Because the suspension was set up relatively hard for racing, you could feel every stone on the road. At the weekend, we just changed the tires and then drove slalom races. This continued until one day a club colleague invited me to a performance test in Zolder as a co-driver.
However, sitting on the passenger side wasn't my thing, so I looked for a co-driver myself and then drove the NAVC performance tests in the eighties and nineties. They consisted of 30 laps with five sections of six laps each. You had to be ten seconds faster for each section. These tests were held on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring, on the Nürburgring GP circuit, on the Hockenheimring, in Zolder Zandvoort and on the Salzburgring. At the first race in Zolder, my front brake pads were already worn out after 25 laps, even though they were new. I then drove with Ferodo racing pads, but even these were ground down to a third in one stage. In those years, I became club champion of the Sieglar racing community three times. In 1985, I came third in the NAVC performance tests.
Fortunately, there were only slips and spins in all those years, but never a crash. It was very hairy once on the last of 10 laps on the Nordschleife when I broke the throttle return spring when accelerating out of the old south bend and everything was at full throttle. After leaving the track three times, I knew nothing else but to switch off the ignition when changing gear and switch it on again after engaging the clutch, and so we arrived safely in the old paddock. I looked over at the co-driver and asked if he had closed his eyes in between and received the answer: "No, I thought I was watching a movie now, I'll never see it again." He was a good passenger over the years and never made a mess of the interior.
At the end of the 1980s, an Ascona B replaced the Kadett in everyday life, and the Kadett was then only used as a competition car and at classic car events.
To date, the Kadett 1200 has covered around 180,000 km, with the engine speed usually hovering close to the red zone. Of course, there were also defects, such as a connecting rod bolt breaking off on the highway. During an event in Zolder, the head gasket blew and the head was torn. The belt pulley broke off three times, nobody could find the cause until an "old fox" from the ring told me to fit a new crankshaft, the old one was probably unbalanced. No sooner said than done, problem solved. It still runs today.
I was also not spared a problem that many others also had, namely the starter motor going on strike, which often caused trouble when warm. But many a defect was certainly due to motorsport, the car really wasn't spared.
Even after 44 years, it is still fun to drive the Kadett quickly on winding roads and make newer vehicles look old ...
